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big huckleberry, black blueberry, black huckleberry, mountain huckleberry, square-twig blueberry, tall huckleberry, thin-leaf huckleberry

Habit Plants forming small to extensive clumps, rarely crown-forming, 2–30 dm, not rhizomatous; twigs of current season yellow-green or reddish green, terete to slightly angled, glabrous or hairy in lines.
Leaf

blades usually green, broadly elliptic to ovate, 25–50 × 11–23 mm, margins sharply serrate, surfaces glandular abaxially.

Flowers

calyx green, obscurely lobed, glabrous;

corolla white, cream, yellowish pink, or bronze, globose to urceolate, 3–5 × 5–7 mm, thin, glaucous;

filaments glabrous.

Berries

shiny or dull black or deep purple, rarely red or white, 9–13 mm diam.

Seeds

ca. 1 mm.

2n

= 48.

Vaccinium membranaceum

Phenology Flowering late spring–early summer.
Habitat Coniferous woods, especially cut-over stands, talus slopes, subalpine fir forests, alpine heaths
Elevation 900-3500 m (3000-11500 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; CO; ID; MI; MT; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; ON
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Vaccinium membranaceum is, by far, the most widely commercially utilized western huckleberry for fruit and is harvested extensively from the wild. This species served as an especially important source of food for native peoples throughout western North America, and the dried berries were used for winter food and trade.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 8, p. 523.
Parent taxa Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Myrtillus
Sibling taxa
V. angustifolium, V. arboreum, V. boreale, V. cespitosum, V. corymbosum, V. crassifolium, V. darrowii, V. deliciosum, V. erythrocarpum, V. hirsutum, V. macrocarpon, V. myrsinites, V. myrtilloides, V. myrtillus, V. ovalifolium, V. ovatum, V. oxycoccos, V. pallidum, V. parvifolium, V. scoparium, V. stamineum, V. tenellum, V. uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea
Synonyms V. coccineum, V. globulare, V. membranaceum var. rigidum
Name authority Douglas ex Torrey: in C. Wilkes et al., U.S. Expl. Exped. 17: 377. (1874)
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